Day at the Four Seasons (Part 2) - Lunch at Caprice

After spending the morning being an "unofficial intern" inside the pastry kitchen at Four Seasons Hong Kong, we emerged from the hotel basement and arrived at Caprice upstairs, as two regular customers. I always know lunch tables at the restaurant were hard to score, but little did I know they were booked up not weeks, but months in advance. We actually only got ours due to a last minute no-show that morning - whoever that decided not to come at the end, we thank you for sparing us that table.

It's actually our first visit to Caprice during day time - and I think the dining room was even more pleasant than in the evening, with the view of the perfect West Kowloon skyline and ample sunshine through the floor-to-ceiling window. Even though a la carte menu was also available, most people - us included - opted for the prix fixe weekend lunch menu, in which you could pick either 2 or 3 courses from a number of options.

We started off with focaccia finger sandwiches and poached duck eggs with truffle jelly as our amuse bouche. Nothing that special with the focaccia - it's still delicious, by the way - but the poached duck eggs with black truffle jelly and white bean mousse - served its own shell - was gorgeous. Rich, creamy, aromatic, tasy, and beautifully presented.

For appetizer I picked the yellow fin tuna tartare with oysters, girolle mushrooms, salicornes and yuzu scent. Plating was nice - tuna tartare with oysters were placed in the middle, surrounded by sauteed mushroom and salicornes (served lukewarm), and the whole dish was covered with a thin yuzu jelly sheet. I loved the sharp acidic taste of the agar-based yuzu jelly sheet that brought out the freshness from that of the tuna and oyster, plus the combination of the chewy and aromatic girolle mushrooms brought a certain interesting garden favor to the dish too.

The choice for the main course was a difficult one for me - there were no less than 3 or 4 options that I wanted to pick. At the end I went with the Shellfish Vol au Vent, served with squids, scallops, prawns and pike quenelle in lobster bisque. I like the strong flavor of the lobster bisque sauce, and also the soft, delicate texture of the pike quenelle. Squid was surprisingly tender too. The dish may look kinda rich and intense, and portion being quite substantial, but I reckon it's a good summer dish that's never too filling.

Both of us forsake the dessert choices and went for the cheeses. There's no spectacle of the long, wooden cheese plate being brought to our table - as they would normally do during dinner time, but we were given a good 10 different choices to share among us - some available exclusively at the restaurant. Their aged Comté and Mimolette were still our favorites, but we were glad to have tasted a few new types. And we concluded our meal with a trio of petit fours - including one with banana mousse on top of a piece of chocolate which I found particularly delicious.

The lunch menu came with a glass of wine - I chose the Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand which was easy to drink and with refreshing acidity. Simple but decent enough.

We had our "meh moment" at Caprice a few months ago - when I think they didn't do enough to wow us with their tasting menu at dinner, but in a sense they have more than redeemed themselves in our impression with the lunch experience we just had. Okay, you won us back, to the extent that we already made our booking to return next month.

More photos on Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/g4gary/sets/72157635014550866/

When? August 10 2013
Where? Caprice, Four Seasons Hong Kong
Menu Highlights? Shellfish Vol au Vent, Squid, Scallop, Prawn and Pike Quenelle in Lobster Bisque
Drink? Mount Riley Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2012,
Web? http://www.fourseasons.com/hongkong/dining/restaurants/caprice/